Megahertz

I started when I was 12. So no. =)

Do you need tens of millions of dollars in assets and hire a ton of people to make a MMORPG? No..

Every time somebody says they want to make an MMORPG, it always gets assumed that they are trying to create something bigger and better than World of Warcraft, or whatever happens to be the most popular MMO at the time.

Even if that was the goal, how do you solicit funding without some sort of proof of concept or technology demo?

It's entirely possible for one person to create a framework that would allow for the basic operation of a MMO type game.

I really hate this answer for a number of reasons.

Yes if the goal is just to make the next uber engine with no basis of a game behind it then sure, it's a valid response. However, generally people have some sort of idea in their head about what kinda game they're trying to make or what they would like to see their project do.

Even if its not a game, it still requires some sort of framework with all the necessary components to support whatever idea it is they have in their head. Renderer, scene management, loading of assets from disk. application state management, etc.. etc..

For me, what I'm working on is a terrain "engine" (I use that term very loosely) that supports paging terrain assets in and out of memory based on distance from the player. I've mostly worked out how Im going to do the management of all that and have most of the frame work up and running. I have no current plans of making a game out of this as this would require more time than I as a single person can contribute, for now... Eventually that may change once I've gotten this project to a certain point and its functional.

If you'd like, I could say I'm making a game where the goal is the player has a rock that they're pushing around the terrain to try and drop it in a hole in the ground. It doesn't really change the required framework of code needed to achieve the above.

I hear the message in the article and the whole "make a game, not an engine" thing, i really do. It makes sense from the standpoint of senselessly creating an engine that  just supports random features that the game may or may not use. Yes, that is wasted time, lacking in direction and just firing aimlessly in the dark. But I don't think that 90% of the people that ask this type of question, not have some sort of game in mind when they ask it. I'm sure they have a vision, it's likely what drove them to be interested in programming in the first place.

Whats the near and far clip set to?

GL_LINE has always been slower than GL_FILL from my experience. I dont think there's a way to speed it up.